


In which Tarvek has a terrible, awful, no good, very bad day

by Overlord_Bethany



Series: Always Send Knives [7]
Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Paris hijinks, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-18 21:53:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16127486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Overlord_Bethany/pseuds/Overlord_Bethany
Summary: Dealing with family always leads to someone dying, right?





	In which Tarvek has a terrible, awful, no good, very bad day

Tarvek took his time getting ready. Ever article of clothing, every accessory he selected with care. With equal care he distributed antidotes and tools about his person. Perhaps he should bring a small stiletto blade. Perhaps it would be taken as a gesture of hostility. One never knew with family.

Presentable and prepared, Tarvek locked up and made for the front door. Perhaps Colette would keep the conversation from turning too awful. Perhaps Leopold would fail to show up. Perhaps he could get through this day without any calamity at all. He opened the front door. A familiar face beamed at him from the other side of it.

“Hello. I’m your plus one.”

“No.” His hopes crumbling to dust, Tarvek seized Tiffy by the shoulders and dragged her into the entryway. “No, no, no, _no_ , I can’t introduce you to my _family!_ ”

“Why not?” Tiffy pushed her lip out in a pretty pout. Taking two handfuls of her skirts, she gave a soft twirl that threatened the stability of the nearby hatrack. “Do I not look the part?”

Tarvek had to admit that she was indeed dressed to the height of fashion, from the kid leather cuffs on her half-boots to her velvet fez to the mechanized chatelaine that snapped aggressively at her arm when her wrist came too near it. He pressed his fingertips to his furrowed brow, trying to push away the beginnings of a headache. “ _Who_ am I supposed to say you are? Some couturier who won’t leave me alone?”

“No, silly, I’m Téa Descartes, and we met earlier this week because I’m a longtime friend of Mademoiselle Voltaire’s.” Beaming again, Tiffy tucked her hand into the crook of Tarvek’s elbow and dragged him back out the door.

“That’s a better name, at least,” he grumbled. But which was the real one? Descartes, at least, gave her a reason to associate with the Voltaire household, but a family getting destroyed by civil unrest would have plenty of cause to turn to espionage. Tarvek fumbled with his keys as he locked the front door.

“We’re going to be late.”

“I hate you.” Tarvek tucked his keys into his pocket beside a linen roll containing tiny screwdrivers.

They managed to catch a six-legged cab, which skittered along above most of the traffic. The machine’s rolling, camel-like gait made Tarvek’s stomach want to race for the exit. He took slow breaths, counting each one. Tiffy nudged him with her foot, but he refused to explain. Not after she had mocked him for his reaction to free-fall.

“I really hoped that we had seen the last of each other,” he said instead. Tiffy gave him a pitying look.

“You’re not going to enjoy your time in Paris.”

Tarvek scowled. He didn’t want to agree with her, yet his thoughts strayed to Gil. Gil, who made his mouth go dry and his chest feel too tight. Gil, the missing piece of himself. Gil, who was so close to him now, and yet too far away. Tarvek tried to swallow the lump forming in his throat. Even if, by some miracle, Gil did love him, they would never be near enough in station to make a fit match. And what of inheritance? Could children made in a lab be acceptable heirs?

Did he seriously ask himself that question?

Scoffing softly at himself, Tarvek turned to stare out the tiny window at his elbow. The buildings whipping by gave him a vague feeling of anxiety, but his motion sickness quieted a bit. The cab lurched to a halt at a street corner near their destination. Grateful for the opportunity to take a little air before seeing his Grandmother, Tarvek offered Tiffy his hand.

“How gallant, Your Highness.” Her eyes danced, and Tarvek bit down hard on a sharp retort. He smiled as he guided Tiffy down to the curb, but he clenched his teeth. The moment they stepped onto the street, the galvanized metal steps ratcheted back up, and the cab sped away.

They walked on in grim silence, arriving too soon at the correct address. Tarvek paused at the bottom of the steps. “Last chance to turn back,” he said.

Tiffy adjusted her fez, took a fistful of her skirts, and seized hold of his elbow. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, dragging him up to the front door, “Your Highness.” Her skirts swished back into place as she pulled the bell.

Tarvek suffered in silence as an impeccably dressed footman led them through into the front parlor. There, Seffie had already arranged herself on a chaise, rather like a painting of a refined-yet-troubled young lady. She saw them, and she brightened at once.

“Téa Descartes!” She swanned to her feet and stretched out both hands in greeting. “I had no _idea_ you’d met my cousin!”

Tiffy clasped both proffered hands, and kissed the air beside Seffie’s cheek. “This bumpkin? I found him loafing about near the school reanimation labs.”

“You’re not still lurking around that dreadful place,” Seffie said, giving her a reproachful look. Tiffy waved away the gentle scolding.

“I owe it to the family, don’t I?”

“Oh, but reanimation!” Seffie gave a theatrical shudder. “It’s so gauche, isn’t it?”

Tarvek decided that he had managed to get himself caught up in something very peculiar, and he would have to discover what, exactly, it was.

“Don’t let Wollstonecraft hear you say that.” Colette breezed into the parlor with a young gentleman on her arm. Though attired in the latest fashions, though his clothing sported fine fabrics and finer cuts, nothing whatsoever seemed to fit him properly. Tarvek frowned, trying to puzzle out this new mystery, and he almost missed seeing the man’s pneumatic crutch.

Of course. He had been there the at L'Endroit Habituel.

“This is Warwick,” Colette said, by way of a curiously perfunctory introduction. “I’m glad to see we’re all becoming fast friends.”

Tiffy laughed as though she had said something outrageously funny, and even Seffie looked amused. Tarvek grimaced.

“We’d better be,” he said, “if Leopold shows up.”

Seffie’s eyes danced with mischief. “Dear cousin Leopold won’t be able to bore us this afternoon. He’s suffered a dreadful accident.”

“Something permanent?” Tarvek didn’t bother to hold out any hope on the matter. Tiffy did a good job pretending horror at this turn of the conversation, but Colette told her to stop faking. Only two more guests arrived before they adjourned to the garden for a surprisingly pleasant afternoon. Whenever his Grandmother drifted away to another part of the little gathering, Tarvek joined Tiffy in trying to tease information out of Warwick. By the time the party sputtered toward its end, they had learned that he was twenty years old, he hailed from Calais, and he had injured himself in a lab accident. Somehow, the man had managed to tell them precisely nothing else. Tarvek admired that deft caginess, albeit grudgingly.

They took their leave at last. Tarvek smiled and said the right polite phrases and steered Tiffy toward the door. He had almost gained the sweet, sweet freedom of the street when Seffie snagged his elbow and dragged him aside.

“I know she’s exactly your type,” she hissed, her whisper urgent in his ear, “but you simply _can’t_ marry a Descartes.”

“What?!” Tarvek yelped, a bit beyond horrified at the thought. Seffie shushed him.

“You can’t,” she repeated. “Do you _know_ what the Fifty Families would do to you if you tried?”

“Seffie. Please.” Tarvek would have laughed, if only he had not found the suggestion so appalling. “You don’t even know what my type is. I assure you, I’d rather spend my time with Mademoiselle Voltaire than with Mademoiselle Descartes.”

Seffie rolled her eyes and, curiously, flushed a bit. “Colette is everyone’s type. Get over it.”

“You were the one who pressed the matter. I assure you, I’ve no intentions of any kind toward Mademoiselle Descartes.”

“Why not?” Seffie called after him as he walked away. “Too much like you?”

Disgruntled, and annoyed at feeling disgruntled, Tarvek caught Tiffy by the arm and hurried her down the steps. She gave him that guileless smile that she had turned on Warwick too many times throughout the afternoon.

“Who’s too much like you?”

“You know perfectly well it’s you,” Tarvek grumped. He jammed his hands in his pockets and stalked away, but Tiffy only trotted to keep up with him.

“Really?” she persisted. “Do you think so?”

Tarvek shook his head. “No. But,” he continued, giving the question grave thought, “you may be a little like my sister. Possibly.” He thought of Anevka, so far away, so alone, hiding her Spark without his help. He looked away.

“Ah.” Tiffy took hold of his elbow in a proprietary sort of way. “You miss her?”

“Not yet,” Tarvek lied. No matter how the two of them plotted against one another, he and Anevka always protected each other from the rest of the family. She was eager to rule Sturmhalten when he ascended to his rightful place.

Of course, their father would have to die for that.

“There, _now_ you’re smiling.” Tiffy squeezed his arm and leaned against him as though they were actually friends. “Do I just have to needle you until you think a pleasant thought?”

Tarvek considered telling her his pleasant thought. Judging by what little he knew of this young woman, it would hardly shock her. He still turned the idea over in his head when a heavy impact to his side sent them both tumbling through a hedge beside the road.

“No finesse…” panted Fyodor. “Inexcusable.”

“Right, see that it doesn’t happen—” As he wrested himself from between the Smoke Knight and Tiffy, Tarvek noticed the blood. “Fyodor?”

Fyodor gave a wet, wheezing chuckle. “No worries there, Highness.”

Tiffy felt for his pulse before Tarvek managed to find the dagger in Fyodor’s back. “Toxin?” she demanded in a tone that reminded Tarvek of the night she had taken him to meet Colette. He fumbled to empty his pockets of antidotes.

“Unknown.” Fyodor’s blood blackened as it oxidized.

Panic rising, Tarvek looked to Tiffy. “We have to get him to a lab or a medical facility or—”

“Highness,” Fyodor interrupted, “no time.”

Tarvek started testing antidotes against drops of Fyodor’s blackening blood. His eyes burned, his hands trembled, and he tried to hide both from Tiffy. “I forbid you to fail,” he hissed through his teeth. “ _I forbid it_.”

“Tarvek.”

Tiffy calling him by his name jolted him out of his frenzy. He blinked down at the vial in his hand, his last antidote. Nothing had any effect.

“We need to get him away from the street.”

Following Tiffy’s lead, Tarvek carefully avoided touching the dagger as he lifted Fyodor. She headed deeper into the hedge, and soon they came upon a large square stone. Tiffy kicked it three times, slapped the top of it, and jabbed it with pins. The block of stone rumbled aside, revealing a stairs down into darkness.

“How…?”

“Grandfather was a Cartographer,” Tiffy said, as though that explained everything. She took hold of Fyodor’s ankles and guided them into the dark. The stone slid closed above them, and for a moment Tarvek could only focus on the steps beneath his feet. Then Tiffy stopped, and a small light flared to life above her head, at the top of her fez.

They stood in a small, oblong chamber. Rectangular recesses lined the walls, and a jumble of abandoned tech littered the far end. Together, Tarvek and Tiffy lowered Fyodor against the nearest wall, a little sideways to prop him away from the dagger.

“Highness.”

Tarvek knelt beside him. “Try not to speak,” he said. “Save your strength.” He rummaged his pockets, searching for anything he could use to make a new antidote.

“Highness,” Fyodor repeated, a little more firmly. “You must live. Spite them. Survive.”

Tarvek clasped Fyodor’s hand in his own, and found his fingers icy. “I promise,” he whispered.

Fyodor’s lips twitched twice before managing to twist into a smile. “Tell me… Name…” He drew a rasping breath. “Name your beloved.”

“Why should I do that?” Tarvek demanded, already knowing he would indulge Fyodor’s last request.

“If you… if you tell…” Fyodor’s eyes began to lose focus. “I know you will burn my body.”

Tarvek leaned close. Too softly for Tiffy to hear, he whispered a name. “Gilgamesh.”

Fyodor wheezed with laughter. “Oh…” Black blood stained his lips. “You’re doomed.”

Fyodor’s head lolled to the side. As his final breaths rattled in his chest, Tarvek fought back an irrational desire to yell at him, to order him to his feet, to command him to live. Instead, he held tight to Fyodor’s hand, and he tried to make observations. He needed to know how the poison worked, needed to record its effects. He needed…

He needed…

He needed his Smoke Knight.

Tiffy squeezed his shoulder, and Tarvek realized he didn’t know how long he had knelt over Fyodor’s body. His knees stiff and his heart heavy, he stood.

“He was your friend,” Tiffy murmured, trying for sympathy.

Tarvek shook his head. “I don’t have friends.” His voice mirrored the tightness in his chest.

Tiffy knew the way to the nearest incinerator. Of course she did. She led the way through a series of narrow tunnels and out into a smoky boiler room. She held the furnace door open for him, and she stood in silence as the flames licked at Fyodor’s clothing.

“Close the door,” Tarvek warned. “I didn’t empty his pockets.”

They stood there a while longer, long enough to be sure no one could learn any secrets from Fyodor. When Tarvek turned away, Tiffy led him back up to the streets, to the lively skin of Paris, to a world of light and noise and treachery. She brought him back to the university district, though not all the way back to his rooms. She pressed his hand between both of hers, she murmured kind, empty words, and she hurried away to report everything to Colette.

Tarvek glanced up and down the busy street. Dusk had only just fallen, and he felt the lack of Fyodor more keenly than ever. Without a Smoke Knight to watch his back, he felt naked and exposed. He shoved his hands into his pockets, and he walked.

He should have gone home. He had the dagger, wrapped up with great care and in dire need of chemical analysis. He could be attacked at any moment. He should sit alone and process the events of the day.

Instead, his feet took him to the school, to the student dormitories, to the one place he should not go. He asked directions, and he found himself on the second floor, standing in the hallway between the back stairway and a closed door. Voices rose and fell within, animated, laughing, full of life. Tarvek leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.

Gil had two people in his room. Tarvek recognized Wooster’s voice, but the appallingly violent woman was a stranger to him. Tarvek remembered Gil as gentle and bookish first, brilliant and adventuresome next, and overall as a beacon of goodness in an otherwise bleak and treacherous world. Why would he associate with someone who described in loving detail her plan to set a professor’s office on fire?

Well, people always fall short of expectations, don’t they?

The door opened, and Tarvek sprang away from the wall. How had someone as big as Gil managed to move so quietly? They blinked at each other, Gil in surprise and Tarvek trying to pretend he had just raised his hand to knock.

“Hi,” they said in awkward unison.

They stared at each other for a moment longer, and then Gil sidestepped around Tarvek and into the hallway. He pulled the door closed.

“You look awful.”

Tarvek wanted to take offense, but all he could manage was a shrug. Gil shuffled closer and lowered his voice.

“Are you okay? What happened?”

Tarvek avoided eye contact, avoided thinking about the nearness of the man he loved. “Family things.” As usual, he winced inwardly at complaining about his family to someone who had none. “Sorry. I wanted to…” To lean his forehead against Gil’s shoulder and feel that maybe, for a moment, he wasn’t so alone. “Ah, I need to say…” _I love you_. No, no, that would only put Gil in danger too. “Do you have a partner for the chem project?”

Coward.

“Um.” Gil glanced back at the closed door, then scrunched his feet inside his shoes. “I was planning to ask Colette.”

Tarvek had had the same idea, until a moment ago. “You and everyone else,” he said, veering closer to familiar conversational territory.

“Right.” Gil hesitated again before asking, “Did you want to go get some coffee or something?”

With his antidotes left in a hedge halfway across town and his stomach still churning and twisting from the events of the past few hours?

“I’d love to.”

What _was_ he thinking?

Gil turned and rapped twice on the door. “Going out!” he announced.

“Give him knives!” yelled back the curiously violent woman.

No need for that, Tarvek thought with a bitter twist of his lips. After all, he still had the one.

Gil pretended not to have heard. “Have you been to Café Insomnie yet? They’re open all hours, and the pastries are really good.”

Pastries, Tarvek reflected, might be acceptable after all.


End file.
